


Happier

by PeakyFookinBlinders (Sherlocked729)



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Bisexual Disaster Tommy Shelby, Comfort, Discussion About Dying, Domestic Gangsters, Fighting, Fluff, M/M, Margate Is The Go To Place For Retirement, Mentions of Cancer, not physical though, sort of a songfic I guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25723525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherlocked729/pseuds/PeakyFookinBlinders
Summary: Alfie is dying and Tommy is angry is about it. He believes that Alfie would be better off without him, but the other man is wiser, and thinks otherwise. A soft, sad fanfic about two gangsters who just want to love each other but death gets in the way.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Happier

**Author's Note:**

> Hi so this is a oneshot unless people say otherwise haha. Based loosely on the song 'Happier' by Marshmello and Bastille. Comment if the urge comes over you, haha.

_Lately, I've been, I've been thinking  
I want you to be happier, I want you to be happier_

_When the morning comes  
When we see what we've become  
In the cold light of day we're a flame in the wind  
Not the fire that we've begun  
Every argument, every word we can't take back  
'Cause with the all that has happened  
I think that we both know the way that this story ends_

_Then only for a minute  
I want to change my mind  
'Cause this just don't feel right to me  
I wanna raise your spirits  
I want to see you smile but  
Know that means I'll have to leave_

"Happier" - Marshmello, Bastille

**_* * *_ **

Thomas Shelby was unhappy. That was the whole of it and all that either man needed to know; he knew that Alfie had to be just as unhappy.

Things had been perfect for the first several months, after Tommy had legally divorced Lizzie and let her keep his children at Arrow House. At first he had visited at least three times a week, but then those visits became few and far between until ceasing altogether.

He had been so wrapped up in Alfie, for better or worse. They spent every day drinking tea and drinking and talking about their business and past regrets. Then those regrets began to be those that had happened within the past twenty-four hours, with each other.

Now, they were in the middle of a heated argument in a standoff with each other. It was pure luck that neither man had their pistols near.

“Go ahead, Tom, run away like you people always do! That’s the answer to all your fuckin’ problem, innit. Run and run until your legs fall off! You’re a bloody coward, is what you are,” Alfie grumbled, angrily pushing the chair in so hard that it caused the breakfast table to move forward a bit.

Thomas took out a cigarette with shaky hands and it took three attempts, but he was finally able to light it. His hands weren’t trembling from nerves, but from rage. It was happening more and more nowadays the longer he stayed here with Alfie.

Once he took a drag from the cigarette, he looked at his lover, exhaustion laced in his eyes. “What do you expect me to do, Alfie? What do you want me to tell you, eh?”

Alfie looked conflicted at first but then seemed to find his footing again. “I want you to tell me that you’ll tell them!”

Tommy shook his head, taking another drag before he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m not telling my family anything, Alfie.”

“Yeah I know why you won’t, right. It’s because you’re fuckin’ ashamed of me… ashamed to be with another gangster who’s tried to kill your family on numerous accounts,” Alfie declared, his voice faltering near the end.

Tommy was already shaking his head in anger and disbelief before Alfie could even finish his last thought. This was a useless, ridiculous fight, and both men knew it. At this point, they were just looking for something to fight about.

“That’s fucking bollocks, Alfie, and you know it! I’m fuckin’ ashamed of my family and the time we’re livin’ in, Alfie… what we’re doing isn’t natural, at least according to everyone else who thinks they fucking know better,” Tommy inhaled again before he paused, letting the smoke enter his lungs. “Just… stop, Alfie. Stop.”

Alfie furrowed his brows, but he looked like he had lost his fight finally. “I’m having a serious fuckin’ discussion with you, Thomas, right. I’ve already told people about us.”

Tommy sighed and looked at him. “What people? Ollie? You mean your only real friend besides me? That’s one fucking person, Alfie.”

“Still more than you’ve told though, Tommy…” Alfie clenched his jaw, his eyes casting downward.

This whole argument was ahead of its time in ways that Tommy could never explain to Alfie. He scratched his forehead with his thumb, being careful not to burn himself as he rested the cigarette between his fingers. He took a deep breath, not wanting to argue anymore.

“The world isn’t ready for men like us, Alfie. They never have been,” he spoke gentler now. “I’ll tell my family, in time.”

 _If we’re still together in six months’ time_ , Tommy thought to himself.

Alfie gave a short, barely seen nod, but still looked miffed. He ran his hands through his hair. “Sorry, Tom. I just haven’t felt like myself lately, right. It’s like the fuckin’ cancer inside of me is takin’ on a fuckin’ life of its own, innit.”

Tommy exhaled sharply before clearing his throat. _The fucking cancer._ He knew that Alfie was getting more and more upset about the cancer inside of him.

The two of them had gone to doctors, discreetly, of course, to see if anything could be done about it. Of course no one knew how to help Alfie, fucking worthless men, the lot of them.

He swallowed hard. Moving was getting more and more difficult for Alfie; he was having more bad days often than not, and Thomas knew he should be patient with him, and for the most part he was, but there were days like these when reality set in a little hard and got to both of them.

No one knew how long Alfie had left, and it left both men angry in their own way for their own reasons.

It was starting to become too much for Tommy. He knew it wouldn’t be right to leave Alfie like this, half-dead, barely able to move by himself. He hated himself more than he hated Alfie, and he knew it wasn’t even the other man’s fault.

“You can’t just blame our fights on the cancer,” Tommy spoke, looking at him with almost sad eyes. “You’re just as unhappy about this as I am.”

“Unhappy about what, Tom?”

Tommy shrugged. “This, _us_. Things were better when I’d come to visit in my car, and then head back out in the morning, but… since I moved in, things are different, aren’t they, Alfie?” He wanted the other man to admit that this was no longer the idyllic situation it used to be.

Alfie looked unsure at first but then Tommy caught him give a hesitant nod. “Maybe… something’s changed since your move-in,” he admitted, albeit reluctantly. “It’s nothing we can’t work through, right. All relationships have fuckin’ bumps, Thomas. We can’t just give up on us because a few arguments here and there, can we?”

Tommy had already been through this once before. He knew the signs of a broken relationship, or rather, a broken marriage. Being with Lizzie had been great at first, until it wasn’t.

Fighting. Arguing.

Sleeping in separate rooms, or with other people.

Tommy knew he was like fire and Alfie was ice; the Birmingham person knew what a terrible fucking person he actually was, and he had no excuse for what he had done. He had gone to some fucking pub in London, taken too much opium and in his sadness, found a man like _him_.

They had scampered off into the darkness, finding a room hidden from the prying eyes of others to keep their forbidden lust a secret, to stay out of jail, or worse, a bedlam.

It had been wrong, a moment of weakness.

He had confessed his sin to Alfie a couple months ago, when things had first started to go sideways between them, and he had been hurt, sure… but what had killed Tommy the most was that the Jewish man hadn’t seemed to be surprised at all.

That was the worst part; he had expected Tommy to do something like that. Alfie had forgiven him right off the bat, no questions asked besides the usual: _do I know him?_ Tommy had no doubt that if Alfie had known this guy to be a business associate or an enemy, he would’ve had him killed.

That was how Tommy knew something was broken between them, something that might never be fixed again. 

“Eh?” His mind had gone blank, having forgotten what they had been talking about as his thoughts trailed off.

“I said, we can’t give up on us. I can see it in your bloody eyes, can’t I? You want to leave… and not just because of this shit, but just… everyfuckingthing else we’ve fought over these past few months, right. My cancer’s getting’ fucking worse and worse every day and you’re scared. You want to cut and fuckin’ run, Tom!”

Tommy snubbed his cigarette out before he suddenly grabbed the chair and threw it down angrily before turning to Alfie. “Of course I’m fuckin’ scared, Alfie! The man I love is fuckin’ dying and I can’t do a fucking thing to save him!” he yelled, but there were tears in his eyes.

He didn’t want to leave, _of course he didn’t_ , but he felt like it would be better if Tommy did leave. At least then, Alfie could get on with the rest of his life and do all the things he wanted to do, things he couldn’t do as long as Thomas Shelby was around.

Even in Margate, neither man could hide his true self.

Alfie looked taken back. He had only seen tears in Tommy’s eyes once, and that was when Cyril had died from natural causes. He had been old, and even though the man knew it, it hadn’t made things any easier for Tom.

A different type of thing was dying now, or rather two things were, and it was too much for Tommy to take.

Alfie looked at a lost now. They were both in a stalemate.

“Why not just… enjoy the time we have left, right? Why don’ you just come here, and we can take a fuckin’ short walk on the beach?”

Tommy shook his head and turned away from Alfie as he sniffed, wiping the tears away from his face. “I-I’m holding you back, Alfie.”

“What? Holdin’ me back? Thomas… you pull me forward. You make me get out of fuckin’ bed every morning, even when I don’t feel like it. You put up with my fuckin’ temper tantrums, don’t you. You’re the only one that’s stuck around… well besides the fuckin’ housekeeper, yeah.”

Thomas swallowed the lump that was in his throat.

“You could make your last months count, Alfie… you could do so much more without me.”

Alfie snorted a humorless laugh. “What, like pull the fuckin’ trigger? Tom, I don’t have a life without you, and that’s the fuckin’ truth, innit. Even with all our fighting like cats and dogs, I’d still prefer this instead of being alone to die all alone.”

Tommy finally forced himself to turn back to look at Alfie again, meeting his eyes, or rather, eye. “This is a fucking disaster, Alfie. Us… this. Me moving here was a mistake, and we both know it. This just… wasn’t meant to be.”

Alfie took a cautious step towards Tommy. “So what, Thomas? You never know how somethin’ is going to work out until you start sharing everything, yeah? We fight, yeah, but… that doesn’t mean that none of this is worth it to me. We still have good days. We lie in bed together, fuckin’ holdin hands like those… normal couples, don’t we? It’s not all bad, Tom,”

Maybe he was right; they did have good days, even if their bad days outweighed the good ones. They still loved each other. Tommy still knew that Alfie would be better off alone than with him, but maybe suffering together was better than suffering alone.

When Tommy didn’t say anything, Alfie continued. “Tom, I’d still fuckin’ rather I die next to you than next to no one, right. Even if my God decides to take me tomorrow, I’ll still be grateful that He gave me all that time with you, even if most of it was spent fighting. I still think it was worth it.”

Tommy let out a low, shaky sob now, and Alfie could see his whole body start trembling like his skeleton was having convulsions, trying to escape.

“I-I don’t want you to fucking die, A-Alfie,” Tommy’s voice shook as he tried to hide his face.

Thomas Shelby, OBE. A man that could never let anyone else see how vulnerable he really was. That was what would be on his gravestone.

Alfie moved over to the man now and wrapped his big arms around him, gently pulling him closer. Tommy let him do this and then buried himself against Alfie.

“We all have to die, sometime, mate. Anyway, I’m already dead, ain’t I? It’s rather difficult for a dead man to die twice, innit.”

Tommy gave a rattled laugh now at this and wiped at his face again, trying to calm himself down. It wasn’t the first time that they had this argument about Alfie dying, and it wasn’t the first time that Alfie had made a joke about it either.

“Come on, love. Let’s get a cup of tea and go out and sit outside, shall we, Tom? It’s a fuckin’ nice day and it’d be a shame for us to stay cooped up inside.”

Tommy nodded and took deep breaths before he watched Alfie put the kettle on and grab cups out. When it was done, they both took their hot cups of tea outside onto the beach with them and sat down, even though the wind was sharp and unforgiving as it made Tommy’s hair wave wildly.

He leaned against Alfie gently, knowing how delicate the older man was nowadays, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Maybe Tommy would stay with him a bit longer.


End file.
